Environment and nature

In this April 30, 2020, photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the peak of Mount Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, is reflected in a pool at the mountain's foot in southwestern China's Tibet Autonomous Region. China sent scientists to climb Mount Everest while the world's highest peak is empty of commercial climbers because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Purbu Zhaxi/Xinhua via AP)

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese government-backed team plans to summit Mount Everest this week at a time when the world's tallest peak has been closed to commercial climbers. Bad weather forced the team charged with measuring the mountain's current height to return to base camp, but they have since taken...

FILE - In this Feb. 4, 2007, file photo, Chicago Bears chairman Michael McCaskey is seen on the field before the Super Bowl XLI football game between the Bears and Indianapolis Colts in Miami. McCaskey, who led the Chicago Bears for nearly three decades following the death of his grandfather George Halas, died Saturday, May 16, 2020, after a lengthy battle with cancer, the team said. He was 76. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Michael McCaskey, who led the Chicago Bears for nearly three decades following the death of his grandfather George Halas, died Saturday after a lengthy battle with cancer, the team said. He was 76. A Yale graduate and the oldest of Ed and team matriarch Virginia McCaskey’s...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Restaurants can reopen in New Orleans, a city famous for its cuisine, but they must take reservations and limit the number of diners. Auto and horse racing tracks in New York can resume competitions but without spectators. Officials cautiously eased more restrictions Saturday on...

Children of migrant workers from other states wait outside a railway station to catch a train to return to their hometowns, in Mumbai, India, Friday, May 15, 2020. The pandemic has exposed India's deep economic divide as millions of migrant workers have left Indian cities with luggage bags perched on their heads and children in their arms, walking down highways in desperate attempts to reach the countryside. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. TOP OF THE HOUR: — India surpasses China in coronavirus infection...

Tina Nguyen, a nurse at at the International Community Health Services clinic in Seattle's International District, examines a nose swab while conducting walk- and drive-up testing for COVID-19, Friday, May 15, 2020. As testing supplies for coronavirus have become more abundant, the clinic has been able to offer testing to anyone in the community by appointment if they are experiencing symptoms. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

WASHINGTON (AP) — As businesses reopened Friday in more of the U.S., an overwhelming majority of states still fall short of the COVID-19 testing levels that public health experts say are necessary to safely ease lockdowns and avoid another deadly wave of outbreaks, according to an Associated Press...

HONOLULU (AP) — A tourist from New York was arrested for allegedly violating Hawaii's traveler quarantine after he posted on Instagram photos of himself sunbathing and carrying a surfboard, state officials said. Hawaii authorities have been cracking down on travelers who defy a mandatory 14-day...

FILE - In this April 15, 2018 file photo, the sun shines off the rear deck of a roadster on a Tesla dealer's lot in the south Denver suburb of Littleton, Colo. Tesla has picked Austin, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, as finalists for its new U.S. assembly plant, a person briefed on the matter said Friday, May 15, 2020. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

DETROIT (AP) — Tesla has picked Austin, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, as finalists for its new U.S. assembly plant, a person briefed on the matter said Friday. The person says company officials visited Tulsa in the past week and were shown two sites. It wasn’t clear if there were any other finalists...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican experts predicted Friday that there will be a higher-than-average number of storms during the 2020 hurricane seasons in the Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific. The Pacific season opened Friday; the Atlantic season begins June. 1. Mexico’s National Water Commission said...

Clouds loom over the Miami skyline Thursday, May 14, 2020. According to the National Hurricane Center website, "A trough of low pressure over the Straits of Florida is producing a large area of cloudiness and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions are expected to become conducive for development, and this system is likely to become a tropical or subtropical storm by late Friday or Saturday when it is located near the northwestern Bahamas." (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A trough of low pressure moving through the Florida Straits could organize over the northwestern Bahamas later Friday or Saturday and become the first named storm of the 2020 hurricane season, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Tropical storm force wind...

A medical worker takes a swab from a resident for the coronavirus test during home visits in Wuhan the epicenter of China's coronavirus outbreak in central China's Hubei province, Thursday, May 14, 2020. Some residential compounds in Wuhan have begun testing inhabitants for the coronavirus as a program to test everyone in the Chinese city of 11 million people in 10 days got underway. (Chinatopix via AP)

The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. TOP OF THE HOUR: — China’s foreign minister lashes out and says...